


Scenes Deleted // Content Restored

by draculard



Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Control, Post-Star Wars: Rebels, Telepathy, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26357947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Deleted scenes from Signal Lost // Contact Regained.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Signal Lost // Contact Regained](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25992955) by [draculard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard). 



For the first time in sixty days, Thrawn fell asleep before Ezra. It wasn’t a gradual process, either; one moment they were sitting in Ezra’s shelter — Ezra on an overturned wooden crate, Thrawn sitting shamelessly on Ezra’s bed — their minds connected, in the very middle of a training session … and the next minute, the memory surrounding Ezra lost its focus, giving way to a multitude of thoughts and emotions that were simultaneously strange and familiar.

When he severed the connection, he found Thrawn lying on his back on Ezra’s makeshift bed, his legs hanging over the side. He must have slumped over and fallen asleep before he could get into a comfortable position.

For a long moment, Ezra simply eyed Thrawn, uncertain how to react. It wasn’t even nighttime yet — still early in the evening, in fact — but at the same time, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. The rain had stopped three days ago, leaving the river to recede and covering the forest floor with drying mud for half a kilometer out. Thrawn had spent the entire time since scavenging the flooded areas for usable debris — fiberplast, water-logged electronics, scrap durasteel, anything that could feasibly be used to build a high-powered transmitter.

During that time, Ezra suspected, Thrawn hadn’t slept a wink. He’d noticed a certain fuzziness in the other man’s mind, a sort of deadened lack of emotion that indicated Thrawn was working on autopilot. But he hadn’t given it much thought, personally, until now — he’d been too preoccupied with the baby ysalimir.

Right now, that ysalimir sat on its severed branch in Thrawn’s shelter twelve meters away. When they weren’t training, it was almost always strapped to Thrawn’s shoulders, traveling with him as he scanned the woods for scrap. He secured it using a bit of monofilament line and some scavenged piping, creating a ten-meter bubble all around him which Ezra couldn’t penetrate. At night, the ysalimir prevented Ezra from peeking into Thrawn’s mind even by accident, like he had once before.

He stared at the sleeping form across from him, chewing his lip. He could feel Thrawn’s thoughts pressing up against his, easier to read now than they had ever been. Partially, this was due to the work they’d put in, especially since their breakthrough the other day. But a larger part of it, Ezra knew, was simply that Thrawn was asleep, his memories and emotions entirely unguarded. Defenseless.

This was why he’d been keeping the ysalimir in his shelter. Neither of them acknowledged it, but they both knew. It was a touchy subject, one Ezra had no business addressing, but he understood it better than Thrawn believed — in a sense, the ysalimir was like a security blanket, a foolproof way to ensure some privacy without the potentially embarrassing necessity of asking for it and explaining why. 

Having seen the nexus of anxiety in Thrawn’s mind — all of it centered around the Force — Ezra understood why. He sighed through his nose and stood, approaching the low cot against the wall. Carefully, he put his hand on Thrawn’s shoulder, surprised a little by the coldness of his skin and the completely limp relaxation of his muscles.

“Thr—” he said, and abruptly Thrawn sat up, staring at Ezra with a perfectly blank face. Ezra stumbled back half a step, falling on his ass with a yelp of surprise.

“I fell asleep,” said Thrawn, somewhat apologetically. The muzzy quality of his voice completely belied the alert look on his face. He rubbed his eyes as Ezra hobbled to his feet, thrown off-balance by the shock of Thrawn waking up so quickly. 

Belatedly, he remembered what he’d seen in Thrawn’s mind a few days before — an almost identical scene with his aide Eli Vanto, only from Thrawn’s point of view.

“Karabast,” Ezra muttered. “That really  _ is _ creepy. Do you always wake up like that?”

Thrawn made a vague humming sound from behind his hands. He stood up, brushing past Ezra rather than answer. “I’m not fully awake,” he assured Ezra. “What did I miss?”

“Uh, nothing,” said Ezra, blinking. “Still stranded. Actually, a ship came by, but I didn’t want to head out without you so I just waved them on.”

Thrawn blinked back, evidently not processing this as a joke. “Ah,” he said eventually. He wrinkled his nose. “Human humor.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Your jokes aren’t any better.”

Thrawn made a face that seemed to imply he disagreed.

“You ready to get back to work?” Ezra asked him, relishing how good it felt to be the one saying those words to Thrawn for a change. “Or do you need to take a break?”

Thrawn hesitated, then scrubbed the sleep out of his face with the palms of his hands. He gestured to Ezra’s seat, spinning his fingers. “We should switch,” he said. “But yes, I’m ready.”


	2. Chapter 2

When the rain stopped and the river finally receded back to its banks, it left behind a trail of fiberplast debris and broken branches where before there had been only grass. The odor of drying mud assaulted Ezra’s nose each day when he woke up; he lounged near the relative safety of the shelter, letting the sun warm him as he watched Thrawn picking his way across the mud.

A broken branch was secured across Thrawn’s shoulders with a bit of rope, strapped to a straight length of scavenged fiberplast piping to ensure it stayed steady. The baby ysalimir wasn’t visible from where Ezra sat, but he knew it was hanging on for the ride. Thrawn claimed he knew how to get the ysalimir off the branch, but its tiny claws were sunk so deeply into the branch core that Ezra absolutely refused to let him try. 

Even with the ysalimir so far away from him, Ezra couldn’t sense Thrawn’s life energy in the slightest. The key, obviously, was that it wasn’t far away from  _ Thrawn _ — with it strapped to his shoulders like that, he was safely engulfed in a Force-proof bubble, and so far, they hadn’t figured out any way for Ezra to get in.

In the distance, Thrawn came to an abrupt halt in the mud and his left shoulder hitched up, almost crushing the baby ysalimir as it stretched its neck out and licked his ear. There weren’t a lot of perks to Thrawn having that thing, Ezra reflected, but watching it warm up to its host at least provided some entertainment. 

He grabbed a thin branch from the ground nearby and stripped the twigs off of it, figuring it would work well as a walking stick to keep him from sinking in the half-dried mud. He trekked out to Thrawn, keeping out of the ten-meter bubble just in case something happened that required him to use the Force — though right now, it looked like the only likely danger was him slipping in the mud. Thrawn was bending over as Ezra approached him, digging what looked like part of an anti-resonance plate out of the bank; he twitched as the ysalimir licked his ear again.

“ _ Stop _ ,” Thrawn muttered to it. He straightened up, his face going carefully blank as he noticed Ezra hovering ten meters away. 

“Find anything?” Ezra asked. 

Thrawn shook his head, tossing the anti-resonance plate toward a pile of debris farther off. “It matters little,” he said. “It would be wise to return to the  _ Chimaera  _ rather than continue picking over light debris; perhaps working together we can find something there worth salvaging.”

Ezra frowned, not really convinced that  _ anything _ could be salvaged from the  _ Chimaera _ anymore, but instead of arguing, he just nodded. It was worth a try, after all — their only hope of getting off this planet (other than a surprise rescue, of course) was to somehow signal their presence to anyone within communication range, and to that end they’d decided to build a transmitter, if they could. Once that was done, Ezra could theoretically use the Force to boost the signal, attracting anyone nearby. 

One of the major issues with that plan was, of course, finding supplies. With the Chimaera all but destroyed in the crash, there was practically nothing they could use. The few scraps of broken electronics Thrawn had managed to find were irrevocably broken — barring Pyrondi’s holoprojector — and had all been located in the relatively unscathed cabins, which was also where Thrawn had scavenged more-or-less intact clothing for himself and Ezra, and (in the early days, at least) a handful of rations bars. 

Thrawn had a fair amount of basic electronics and engineering knowledge, and Ezra knew a little too from his days as a thief, but without a tech lab or even a method to harvest the necessary elements, there wasn’t much they could do.

Still, Thrawn seemed determined to try.

And though they didn’t talk about it — not explicitly — Ezra was, too. He scanned the mud, looking for any scrap he might be able to inspect while they talked, and found nothing. Thrawn had been combing over this area for hours now, starting at first light with the ysalimir on his shoulders.

Ezra eyed the ysalimir, close enough now that he could make out its pale yellow scales and the patch of tangled brown fur growing from its shoulders. Since they’d rescued it from the fallen tree, it had only briefly left Thrawn’s side; their daily mind-reading training had been whittled down to brief one-hour sessions twice a day, or whenever Thrawn decided they had time. When that happened, he’d leave the ysalimir on a frame in his shelter and walk with Ezra to the woods or the river — wherever they had chores that needed to be done, so long as it was far enough away to escape the ysalimir’s influence. 

It was frustrating — especially when they’d come so far in recent days — but at the same time, it was necessary. After the Force-related anxiety he’d stumbled across in Thrawn’s mind, Ezra suspected they never would have made much progress unless the other man had some way to block Ezra from his mind when he wanted to, to keep the Force at bay. 

It was the sort of thing Thrawn would have claimed wasn’t necessary if Ezra had checked with him first — but now that the opportunity was there, he’d grasped it with both hands. If asked, he’d probably claim he kept the ysalimir with him at all times as some sort of experiment, or even as a training exercise for Ezra, but there was no hiding the truth. Before, the only thing keeping Ezra from entering Thrawn’s mind at will was basic human decency — a tenuous contract between the two of them, at best — and lack of skill. Now, with the ysalimir headquartered in Thrawn’s shelter or strapped to his back at all times, he knew that Ezra couldn’t read his mind without permission, eliminating the possibility that Ezra could break in whenever he wanted to, whether out of anger or simple curiosity. Thrawn had the additional guarantee that Ezra couldn’t spy on his unguarded thoughts and dreams while he slept.

Not that Ezra had been able to do that in the first place. The few times he’d attempted it, he’d seen nothing but the same unreadable ciphers that dominated Thrawn’s mind when he was awake, only they’d seemed calmer and more automated, like his mind ran on autopilot while he slept. Of course, there was no way for Thrawn to know how little Ezra could see — and Ezra certainly wasn’t going to fight him if he wanted a security blanket of sorts.

It didn’t seem like the type of fight he wanted to win. In fact, just thinking about the days they’d spent training already without anything more than a thin facade of agency on Thrawn’s part filled Ezra with a gut-roiling sense of shame. Knowing that Thrawn had entered into the exercise willingly — that it had been his idea, even — did little to assuage the feeling. 

He remembered the small Chiss child he’d seen in Thrawn’s memories — younger even than Ezra had been when his parents died — huddled in the flooded caves and pushing back his fear in a way most adults never learned, repeating to himself the same words which had apparently become Thrawn’s unofficial mantra throughout life:  _ I need allies. _

The search for allies — for anyone who could fill the gaps in the Chiss Ascendancy’s skills, or in Thrawn’s own skills — had led to countless unsavory sacrifices and concessions over the years, including things Ezra was sure Thrawn would never voluntarily show or tell him. The search for allies had led Thrawn into what might yet prove to be a permanent exile, isolating him from his homeworld, his culture, and everyone he’d ever known — leading him to serve, however briefly, an Empire which hated anyone non-human, including him. 

Frowning, Ezra glanced sideways at Thrawn, who had straightened up and shaded his eyes to stare out at the distant river. Sunlight reflected off its surface, dazzling both of them even from so far away. Below them, the muddy ground was starting to harden in the day’s heat. 

As Ezra watched, Thrawn reached up over his shoulder absently, gently stroking the ysalimir’s head. 

“We should go,” he said, his voice toneless, impossible to read. 

Thinking inexplicably of home, Ezra nodded. 


	3. Chapter 3

“So are you more of a cat guy or a dog guy?” Ezra asked.

Thrawn paused, his fingers momentarily hesitating over the fish. After a long silence, he seemed to recalibrate and resumed the gutting process. He eyed Ezra and said, “Do you prefer vesska or drashen?”

Ezra frowned. “Uh, what?”

Thrawn flipped what was left of the fish into a pan over the fire. When he sat back down on the bank of the river with Ezra to wash his hands, he said, “Why should I have a preference for your planet’s animals? Do you have a preference for mine?”

“Ugh. It’s a _broad category,_ dude,” Ezra said. “I’m not asking about _just_ Loth-cats or Loth-wolves, I’m asking about — you know, just in general, which do you prefer? Felines or canines?”

“I prefer useful animals,” Thrawn said. “Today I am partial to fish.”

Typical. 

“You’d like dogs, then,” Ezra determined. “They’re more useful than cats. You can train them to guard your house or attack people — I can definitely see you with a giant Loth-hound as a pet.”

Thrawn wrinkled his nose and shook the water off his hands. “I doubt that. There is limited space for pets on a Star Destroyer.”

For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Thrawn glanced at the ysalimir resting between them, its claws sunk deep into a wooden rack and its head resting along Thrawn’s thigh. Ezra stared studiously at the river, refusing to acknowledge Thrawn’s slip — there was no reason to take a Star Destroyer’s space into consideration anymore. Neither of them would ever set foot in a working Star Destroyer again. 

Ezra reached out, tangling his fingers in the ysalimir’s coarse fur. He remembered the Loth-wolves back home; their knowing eyes; their preternatural sense of dignity. And Kanan….

“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked Thrawn.

He didn’t need a connection to the Force to read Thrawn’s mind in that moment. A look of blatant confusion followed by distaste shadowed Thrawn’s eyes.

“I was given to understand your crew’s name was more figurative than literal,” he said. “Governor Pryce informed me there are few Lothalian myths concerning ghosts, and that humans for the most part do not acknowledge their existence as fact.”

“I’m not asking because of Ghost Crew,” said Ezra uneasily. He leaned back on his palms. “What, you don’t have ghost stories where you come from?”

Thrawn hesitated before shaking his head. He turned away from Ezra, rolling onto his back in the long grass. Sunlight glinted off the pendant around his neck, which was still coated in tiny drops of water from the river.

“You _do_ believe in ghosts, then?” Thrawn asked, his eyes sliding closed. 

“Well, with the Force and all…” Ezra trailed off, biting his lip. He glanced out at the river and then back at Thrawn, studying the other man’s face. He suspected the relaxation he saw there was at least partially feigned.

“Are you napping?” he asked, poking Thrawn in the shoulder. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Thrawn resting during the day before. “Or are you just trying to avoid the conversation cuz you think it’s lame?”

Thrawn didn’t answer.

“How many ysalimiri do you think are here on this planet?” Ezra asked instead, changing the subject.

“Thousands,” Thrawn murmured. He settled blindly into the grass, relaxing a little bit more when Ezra stopped poking him and pulled his hand away.

“ _Tens_ of thousands?” Ezra asked.

The relaxation disappeared. Thrawn cracked open one eye to study him. “Yes...”

They stared at each other silently for a moment; then Thrawn’s face darkened and he sat up, the movement slow and almost predatory as he realized what Ezra was getting at. Flushing, Ezra looked away.

“ _Ghosts_ are not real,” Thrawn told him with a distinctive edge to his voice. “My crew was not Force-sensitive. They have not been reincarnated. Their souls do not live on in the bodies of these animals — and I don’t appreciate the disrespect in a statement like that. I—”

Thrawn cut himself off, lips forming a thin line as he shook his head. 

“I didn’t mean it like that. It just seemed right to me,” said Ezra, avoiding Thrawn’s eyes. He gave a sullen shrug. “I don’t know. It makes sense that they’d come back as ysalimiri, don’t you think? That way they can keep being useful to you?”

Thrawn shot to his feet so quickly that Ezra flinched, surprised by the reaction but suddenly certain he’d gone too far. He covered his face reflexively, arms folded over his head — but if he was waiting for an attack, it never came. Instead, Thrawn staggered for balance and stood there a moment, his eyes dazed, his expression stricken before he turned and walked away; from a distance, Ezra could see his legs shaking. He watched Thrawn cross his arms over his chest, rubbing viciously at his arms as if that might erase the subtle tremor going through them. Then Thrawn disappeared into his shelter, and Ezra could no longer tell.

He looked at the ysalimir and fancied he saw an accusatory glint in its eyes. Ezra tracked back over his words, wished he could hear his own tone from Thrawn’s point of view. He hadn’t meant it like _that_ , hadn’t meant to compare the _Chimaera’s_ crew to animals or imply that Thrawn was only using them … but even so, he probably shouldn’t have said anything at all.

“Yeah,” he sighed, stroking the ysalimir’s head. “That was the dumbest thing I’ve said all month. I know. Give me a moment, okay?”

He moved the rack farther down the river bank and walked back to his spot, sticking his bare feet in the water. He could feel Thrawn’s mind folding in on itself in the shelter a few meters away. The thoughts were swirling too fast to be coherent, but the general thread of emotion was simple enough to pick up — and it wasn’t good.

Kriff. He _really_ shouldn’t have said anything. He could feel Thrawn stewing in anger inside the shelter, his knees pulled up to his chest, trying to knead the tremors out of his legs with the heel of his palm. There was a scowl of mixed anger and concentration pulling at Thrawn’s face as he worked, but his lips were parted, his breath wheezing out of him in a painful, shallow rasp. If he noticed the sharp stab of agony in his own lungs, he didn’t acknowledge it — but _Ezra_ could feel it. It was like Thrawn’s lungs had restricted suddenly, letting nothing in and hardly anything out. Out on the bank of the river, he laid a hand against his chest and massaged the muscle there as if he could relieve the pain. 

It struck him as almost ludicrous that Thrawn would attack his tremors as a _physical_ problem, as if he were shaking from simple exhaustion — and as if he could make the whole reaction go away just by applying pressure. There was a thread of confusion laced through the other emotions in Thrawn’s head, like he genuinely didn’t know why he’d started shaking on the bank of the river. 

Part of that was because Thrawn recognized his own anger — Ezra could feel as much — but not the other emotions swirling around inside him. He _felt_ them, but didn’t know how to describe them, maybe didn’t have the vocabulary to name them. The sense of confusion — the anguish — the consuming, gnawing wave of guilt — all went unacknowledged. 

But what could Ezra say? The first thing that popped into his head was just empty, reflexive words of comfort — _You weren’t using them._ But Thrawn was a military commander; whether they liked to acknowledge it or not, both Ezra and Thrawn _had_ used the men and women under their command. His words, insensitive as they may have been, were still true. Empty comfort might work with anyone else, but Thrawn would see through it in a heartbeat, and he wouldn’t appreciate the effort. So was there anything he could do here, really? Anything at all?

In the shelter, Thrawn hugged his legs to his chest and bent forward, the caps of his knees pressing against his closed eyes. His fingers laced together around his calves. The tremors going through him lessened somewhat in that posture, fading away until they were little more than an occasional, mild shiver — but they were still there.

_Ezra._

On the river bank, Ezra jolted to attention, surprised to hear his own name swimming to the surface of Thrawn’s mind. He listened closer, anxious to hear what Thrawn thought of him right now.

 _Some privacy, please?_ Thrawn thought, his mental voice weary. With a grimace of chagrin, Ezra realized Thrawn wasn’t thinking about him; he was _addressing_ him. _You’re not helping,_ Thrawn said.

Ezra opened his mouth reflexively and then shut it, unsure how to explain. _Is there anything I can—_

A sense of distaste flickered through Thrawn’s mind, telling Ezra exactly how he felt about the aborted offer to help.

 _Everything you think and feel is…_ Different words swirled through Thrawn’s brain as he figured out what to say. _Overwhelming me_ came through dimly, but it was repressed as soon as the thought occurred to him, giving Ezra scarcely any time to recognize it.

 _...projected,_ Thrawn finished eventually. Then, irritably, _Don’t listen to all that. Listen to what I_ tell _you, not the background noise._

Ezra grimaced again. He couldn’t help but listen to it all. And he certainly didn’t want to leave Thrawn alone, not when he was clearly one bad thought away from a panic attack — or in the middle of one already, from what Ezra could tell—

Exasperation rolled over him in waves from Thrawn’s mind. 

_I can hear you,_ he said. And then, _It’s patronizing. Go away._

Beneath the word Thrawn selected — _patronizing_ — Ezra caught a glimpse of all the other words he’d considered and rejected. _Insulting, condescending, rude._ But one in particular, _violating_ , stood out, and Ezra recoiled from Thrawn’s mind at once when he saw it. Thrawn _knew_ he’d seen it, too; a sense of humiliation chased Ezra out, disappearing only when he slammed a barricade down between their minds. Shame burned in his cheeks; he moved back downriver automatically, fleeing to the ysalimir and its bubble of protection.

Protection for himself or for Thrawn, he didn’t know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The transmitter reveal, version 1

“Stop that,” Ezra snapped, his irritation bleeding through. Thrawn went still, watching him blankly as Ezra jerked his hand out in an aborted gesture. “Stop calling me _Commander Bridger,_ okay? Just call me Ezra already. I mean, when have I ever called you ‘ _Grand Admiral Thrawn?'_ ”

“You don’t typically address me by name,” Thrawn said. A slight frown touched his lips. “I believed it was a sign of respect to call you by your rank. If that isn’t so—”

“No, man,” Ezra said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it — or why he was saying any of this now, anyway. “It’s kriffing _weird_.”

“You’re certain this is where you want to center your anger?” said Thrawn mildly.

Ezra didn’t respond to that. He glowered at Thrawn without saying a word, his hands clenched into fists.

“ _Ezra_ ,” said Thrawn, with a slight nod of his head, “I have not been entirely honest with you.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Kindness is more important than competence, Thrawn,” said Ezra.

“I disagree,” said Thrawn simply. “Except in that kindness is often a function of competence. Therefore it is sometimes important in its own right.”

“Kindness to your subordinates makes them work better?” Ezra asked, guessing Thrawn’s reasoning from the layout of his thoughts.

Thrawn inclined his head. Clearly, he was happy to let Ezra believe that was what he really thought. 

“Except kindness is an instinct,” Ezra argued. “If it wasn’t your first instinct to be kind, then people would notice. They’d know you weren’t being genuine.”

Thrawn shrugged. “That has not been my experience.”

“Oh, hell yes it has,” Ezra said. “You just don’t wanna admit it. You used to be way more open and empathetic than you are now.”

Thrawn’s face twitched at that and he looked away. A series of images flitted across his mind — Thrawn telling an ensign truthfully that he wasn’t intelligent or adaptable enough to be a pilot, that he would only drag the rest of his squadron down or get them killed; Thrawn in battle, his lips pulled back in a snarl as he shoots an already wounded enemy in the chest; Thrawn signing the paperwork to transfer a traumatized crewmember away from his ship post-battle, citing incompetence and poor mental health.

Ezra blinked it all away and shook his head. 

“But you buried the bodies of your crew,” Ezra reminded him, voice soft. “And when you were a kid, looking for your parents after that attack, you stopped and turned the heads of strangers to the north. There was no practical reason to do that.”

“So you think it was kindness?” asked Thrawn. “You can’t be kind to the dead. What you saw was _respect_.”


	6. Chapter 6

Carefully, Thrawn adjusted the rack so that it clamped horizontally across his arm, with the ysalimir lying vertical to his forearm. He scratched it under the chin while Ezra explained.

“It was amazing,” he said. “I could see its thoughts exactly like I can see yours! Only it’s all pictures and feelings and smells, no words — and I could feel it all, like every single one of its physical sensations. Did you know it has little insects living on it? Tiny insects, not visible to the naked eye?”

“The human eye,” Thrawn demurred. “Yes, I knew. They are symbiotic with the ysalimor; they clean its dead skin cells and waste from the wood of the tree.”

“Well, I never even knew about them before!” said Ezra, exhilarated. “And now I can _sense_ them, just like I can sense anything else when there aren’t ysalimiri around.”

“And when there are other ysalimiri around?” Thrawn asked. “Have you experimented near the ruins yet?”

“Not yet,” Ezra admitted. He contemplated the ysalimir, biting his lip. “Do you think it’ll … you know, vouch for me? If I take it along?”

“Perhaps,” said Thrawn. “Though I must tell you the Bendu did not particularly ‘vouch’ for you at Atollon, despite your alliance with it.”

Ezra grimaced and waved this aside. “Not the same.”

“We’ll simply have to test it and see,” said Thrawn. He turned to the river, holding his arm out carefully to avoid jostling the ysalimir. “If not, I am certain you will eventually gain trust from the other young; it’s not entirely essential to sway the elders for our mission. A minimum number of—”

He cut off suddenly. Ezra tensed, looking out at the river, but could see nothing that might have tipped Thrawn off to danger. Then, suddenly, he heard a brassy choking noise and saw Thrawn’s shoulders shaking — it was only when Thrawn turned to him with a strange, pinched smile on his face that Ezra realized he was laughing.

“What?” said Ezra sharply, unnerved by the abrupt change. He almost wished it had turned out Thrawn was sobbing instead. “What is it?”

Still laughing — God, Ezra wished he would stop — Thrawn held out his arm. Beneath the ysalimir and its rack, a strange viscous fluid coated Thrawn’s arm, turning his skin yellowish-white. It was still wet, but quickly drying into a crust. Ezra approached, alarmed, but Thrawn pulled his arm back before Ezra could touch it.

“What’s wrong? What is that shit?” Ezra asked.

Thrawn muffled another laugh, teeth flashing bright white against his skin. “It, uh…” He gestured delicately at the ysalimir’s back end. “It’s shit,” he said.

Ezra blinked at him, uncomprehending.

“It shit on me,” Thrawn clarified.

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” said Ezra. “Why are you _laughing_ about it?”

Amazingly, Thrawn bit back more laughter and shook his head, then shrugged.

“It’s funny?” he said. “Take the ysalimir, please. I need to clean this off.”

“ _That’s_ what you think is funny?” Ezra asked, boggling at him. “I’ve cracked some of the best jokes of my entire _life_ out here and you’ve never even smiled! But an ysalimir shits on you and _that_ makes you laugh?”

Thrawn had mostly gotten his face back to neutral; but now his lips broke apart seemingly against his will and he turned away just as Ezra got the ysalimir rack unlatched. Ezra could tell he was laughing again — just silently, this time — as he bent to the river to wash his arm.

“I will never understand you,” Ezra said, shaking his head. “You’re not right in the head, dude.”

Thrawn shrugged again. “Humans have no sense of humor. Vanto wouldn’t have laughed, either.”

“But a Chiss would?” Ezra asked. “You guys just like toilet humor, then?”

Thrawn scoffed, glancing reproachfully over his shoulder at Ezra. “It’s not funny because it’s toilet humor,” he said. “It’s funny because we had only just discussed the symbiotic parasites living on the ysalimir’s scales.”

That, Ezra thought, was even _less_ funny, but he didn’t say so aloud.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate version of the end; Thrawn planted the rigged comm on Fossk instead of Mossil and Ezra triggered the explosive while Fossk was firebombing them.

Thrawn nodded at Ezra, his face grim. Ezra nodded back. Eyes trained on the incoming fighter, he lifted his weaponless hand — palm empty, fingers outstretched — and aimed it at the sky.

And with a great deal of concentration, he used the Force to ignite the explosives tucked innocuously away in the old communicator Fossk had taken from the burnt-out shelter several hours back.

Flames lit up the fighter’s transparisteel viewport; it jerked off-course, veering sharply to port a moment later. Ezra and Thrawn crouched down, both of them dragging Oss’ka with them, protecting her from the blast as Fossk’s fighters collided with the trees nearby. 


End file.
